Since it is a fast day, in place of ordinary weird things, I am posting a list of religious questions I have devised. This should give you some idea of my theological thinking. Do no be surprised if you know the answer to none of them; none of these are trivial or common knowledge. If you cannot read Hebrew where it is used, you are unlikely to have the answer, so do not worry about it. If anyone knows the answer to any of these questions, I would be very appreciative.
Aaron
Is there any religion other than Judaism which claims a mass revelation (i.e., the number of people to which a deity reveals him/herself simultaneously is greater than one, preferably much greater than one)?
(Note 1: At least one reference is required, preferably at the verse level.)
(Note 2: Religions claiming to supersede another religion cannot simply claim the mass revelation of a religion they claim to supersede. Likewise, religions claiming that another religion is merely a corrupt version of them may not claim the mass revelation of the religion they claim is a corrupt version of them.)
דּברים כ״ה י״ט: וְהָיָ֡ה בְּהָנִ֣יחַ ה֣׳ אלה֣׳ךָ ׀ לְ֠ךָ מִכָּל־אֹ֨יְבֶ֜יךָ מִסָּבִ֗יב בָּאָ֨רֶץ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הֽ׳־א֠לה׳ךָ נֹתֵ֨ן לְךָ֤ נַֽחֲלָה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ תִּמְחֶה֙ אֶת־זֵ֣כֶר עֲמָלֵ֔ק מִתַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לֹ֖א תִּשְׁכָּֽח׃
תּהִלּים קמ״ה ז׳: זֵ֣כֶר רַב־טֽוּבְךָ֣ יַבִּ֑יעוּ וְצִדְקָֽתְךָ֥ יְרַנֵּֽנוּ׃
הֲישׁ גִּרסת תּנ״ך אשׁר נִמצא בַּפּסוּקים הָאלּה הנֻּסּח ״זֶכֶר״ ולֹא ״זֵכֶר״?
תּהִלּים קמ״ה ז׳: זֵ֣כֶר רַב־טֽוּבְךָ֣ יַבִּ֑יעוּ וְצִדְקָֽתְךָ֥ יְרַנֵּֽנוּ׃
הֲישׁ גִּרסת תּנ״ך אשׁר נִמצא בַּפּסוּקים הָאלּה הנֻּסּח ״זֶכֶר״ ולֹא ״זֵכֶר״?
Why is the ordering of תּנ״ך from בּבא בּתרא י״ד ע״ב never used?
How can one distinguish experimentally or observationally whether one lives in a universe with free will or one where everything is strictly predetermined?
Is there any religion which claims the existence of more than one uncreated deity?
The soul is probably not a separate enitity from the brain because all of a person’s mental functions are demonstrably exorably linked to the brain. If they were not, brain damage would not affect one’s mental functions at all. Is there any empirical evidence to the contrary?
According to those who believe in reincarnation, the soul after death may resurface in another body. Given that there is no empirical evidence that anyone has memories from a past life, what do these people believe survives between lives?
Can anyone provide any useful suggestions for getting around the problem of confounding effects in testing the just-world hypothesis?
If the Documentary Hypothesis is true, there should have been groups which did not accept the redacted Torah but clung to J, E, P, or D. Is there any record of any such group ever existing?
Some religions deify nature or natural phenomena. This is problematic since the natural world gives every indication of being not sentient but rather purely mechanical and thus not suitable for worship. How does one realistically circumvent this problem?
Theism is in principle demonstrable, since empirically demonstrable prophecy is conceivable. However, what can an atheist do to demonstrate that no god exists? Even if one is convinced based on the structure and workings of the universe that no material deity exists, (so far as we can tell), we are not empowered to observe anything outside our own physically reality. Therefore, how can one distinguish experimentally or observationally between atheism, deism, covert panenthesim (immanent theism), and covert transcendent theism?
10 comments:
"How can one distinguish experimentally or observationally whether one lives in a universe with free will or one where everything is strictly predetermined?"
"Predetermined" suggests someone set up things specifically; things being simply deterministic is also a viable possiblity. Behavior is plausibly deterministic when it can be demonstrated to be a function of other variables (much as the rest of the physical universe). One can always claim free will (behavior as its own determiner), but it is less plausible when the causes of behavior are known. Since behavior under experimental control may be largely accounted for by the variables being examined (in properly done experiments), the case for free will is pretty flimsy.
"If the Documentary Hypothesis is true, there should have been groups which did not accept the redacted Torah but clung to J, E, P, or D. Is there any record of any such group ever existing?"
This presumes that representatives of these groups would have survived. This is like discounting evolution because of a lack of living birds with teeth. There may have been historical circumstances which has resulted in the lack of these groups. Do remember of the traditional twelve tribes of Israel, ten were lost and only one of those groups were found (Ethiopian Jews claim to be Danites), and certain groups such as the Essenes and Sadducees no longer exist. Perhaps in the whole nasty affairs related to the Babylonian and Roman exiles only the redacted-Torah followers survived. How does the Karaite version of the Torah compare to the rabbinical version, and when did the two groups allegedly split?
"However, what can an atheist do to demonstrate that no god exists?"
An atheist doesn't have to make the demonstration. The claim for the existence of a superbeing who created the universe is pretty extraordinary; what is lacking is sufficient proof of this claim for those who find the evidence lacking. Prophecy is one possiblity, but even this is not likely to be impressive to unbelievers unless they are unusually reliable and beyond the predictive powers of humans. Given the lack of reliable, demonstrated prophets in the recent past, atheists can reasonably take the position that the prophecies allegedly made long ago might have been confirmed retroactively (that is, prophecies were invented after the events they supposedly predicted). One can easily make a number of claims that are difficult to disprove; this does not mean they must be worthy of our serious consideration. We cannot easily disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but no one actually believes in it. The whole thing about God being outside of our reality is conceptually plausible but in practical terms makes the whole claim unscientific since it even in principle it could not be investigated. Atheists have nothing to prove regarding the existence of God, any more than they have to prove anything about the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. It is theists who have to actually demonstrate something.
Hey, is it true like it says in The Holy Land that in Baba Basrra it says that guys who're distracted from religious studies because they want sex should go see a prostitute?
1) "An annoying person who, unfortunately for you, is right" is probably the most pretentious pseudonym I've ever seen, and I disagree with it.
2) "Predetermined" means "only one possible history for the universe, immutable ever since the beginning". "Free will" is something for which I am not so clear on the definition. "Determinism" means the universe has set rules and that there is cause and effect, but does not in and of itself imply predeterminism or free will.
3) I am not presuming that, say, a J-only group would have survived. We have records of many religious groups having once existed that are extinct. We know that there were Sadducees, Essenes, real Judeo-Pagans (not the modern people going by that name), Boethusians, and Shabbateans, but none of these groups have survived. On the other hand, I have never heard of anything that hints that, say, a J-only group ever existed or that there ever was a controversy over redacting J, D, E, and P into one document.
4) The Karaites use the save version of the Torah as Orthodox Jews. You probably mean "Samaritans", who originated in the First Temple Period and who use what looks like an edited version of the Jewish Torah.
5) You are essentially claiming that atheism is more probable than theism. What I asked is how to demonstrate the nonexistence of all deities. These are not the same thing.
6) Never assume anything in a movie is correct. The saying that movie apparently cites does not mean any such thing. In terms that my brother Barry probably will appreciate, if one is feeling strongly tempted to transgress, one should modify the behavioral cues (clothing, location) that make it likely that one will transgress.
How do you say "pandeism" in Hebrew? Actually to be more direct, how do you write "pandeism" in Hebrew?
I am not aware of any Hebrew term for pandeism, which is just as well, since the term seems to mean different things to different people. (Yes, you could just use פנדאיזם, but you risk inventing a term no one understands.) What specific concept are you trying to find a Hebrew term for?
Sorry for the long abscence - I mean the sense of a combination of pantheism and deism, in other words pandeism in the sense of a deistic God (the creator God who creates and then does not interfere) who creates by actually becoming the pantheistic God (the God who is no more and no less than the universe itself).
Is פנדאיזם just that sort of combination of פנתאיזם and דאיזם? That would be the logical answer. Concepts new to a language have to be translated into it at some point, so this is as good as any.
פנדאיזם is nothing more than how one would naturally transliterate the word "pandeism" into Hebrew. The conception of pandeism which you describe is very much foreign to Judaism and not one of any
of the peoples Jews have had much historical contact with, and thus it is unsurprising that it there is no native Hebrew term for it.
I am curious then, how does Deism translate -- not the word itself, but the concept. It would seem the concept of a creator God who creates and then does not interfere would be foreign to Judaism as well.
But Deism as a philosophical concept has been around for about 300 years, Pantheism for over 400 years, and Pandeism for 150 years (there is also Panentheism, belief that God is both immanent and transcendent in the Universe, coined about 180 years ago, and the much more recent variation of Panendeism).
Are none of these concepts discussed in the Hebrew language? Surely there must be words used in discussing the ideas - transliterations, all?
Deism translates as דֵּאִיזְם according to מילון מורפיקס (http://milon.morfix.co.il/) adding the description ההכרה שאלוהים ברא את העולם אך אינו מתערב במהלכו. It is also a concept which is pretty foreign to Judaism, too.
As far as I can tell, there weren't even specific terms for theism (תֵּאִיזְם), deism (דֵּאִיזְם), panentheism (פנאנתאיזם), or pantheism (פַּנְתֵּאִיזְם) in Hebrew until very recently. Theism in one form or another, of course, precedes Judaism and has always been a given. I'm not sure when panentheism (as opposed to transcendent theism) got started among Jews, but some of our mystics have espoused it for several centuries.
Thanks, this information on the translations has been useful to me!
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